I never thought of myself as a person who HAD to have a TV. I always considered it a welcome distraction at the most, a way to unplug my busy, generally anxious brain and just zone out. It was nice to have, but was I one of those stereotypical obese zombie Americans who watched 500 hours of TV a week? No. I was proudly not. It was just TV. Same thing with the internet, especially now that I’m an office drone. Do I really want look at a computer after staring at one for 8 hours straight? Um, no. HELLS no. My eyes would literally remove themselves from their sockets and walk away in protest.
But you know that song that goes “…you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone?” That has been my last 2 weeks, in a nutshell. Except when the singer (I want to say it’s Joni Mitchell?) came up with those lyrics I’m sure she was thinking about true love or war or the environment or something actually important. Not TV. But whatever.
To those of you who are wondering where I’ve been since October 29th, well, I’ve been right here! I’ve just been without a television or internet. Mystery solved. Don’t look so shocked. That was not a typo. In the two weeks that we have lived in our new (awesome) apartment, we have been sans technology of any kind.
The thing about moving is that even after the big stuff, the manual labor (not that I actually did any of that, but I did spectate and direct, which is equally taxing) and the packing and the actual transferring of entire lives from one place to another, there are still a hell of a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up. Which is incredibly annoying, especially because you think finally, I’m moved! All done! Lets start LIVING a fabulous new life in this fabulous new apartment! LETS DECORATE!
Sorry, maybe that’s just me? Maybe I’m just extraordinarily impatient? Maybe I’m just inexperienced in the art of moving? This was, after all, technically my first move. Maybe I’m just an amateur.
Irregardless. Scraggly, irritating loose ends abound. And sometimes these issues are out of your control, and no matter how much you want to make them go away and have things finally done, you can’t. Enter TimeWarner Cable.
I won’t go into the gory details, because they are quite literally too obnoxiously bureaucratic and painfully frustrating to force anyone to read about them. Suffice it to say that despite having taken all the correct steps, and despite having called and emailed and online chatted with TWC many, many times, when we finally had the keys in our hands on November 1st, there was no cable or internet to be had in our new home.
In the afterglow of having actually achieved moving (hooray!) with minimal drama, H and I were pretty OK with doing without cable & internet for a day or two. We literally did not own a television at that point, so really, it was just something to sigh over and solider through. We put on some tunes, opened a celebratory bottle of wine, and unpacked a little bit. TV was, dare I say it, not even missed.
That was night #1.
It is now night #12.
Listen, I love H very much and we have good conversation and stuff and I very much enjoy just gazing at him weirdly at times, but sometimes you just want to come home, exchange pleasantries, and hunker down in front of the TV. Sometimes (all the time) you want to watch the news when you get up in the morning and giggle at the kooky ways of master weatherman and entertainer, Sam Champion (GMA fo’EVER!). Sometimes (rarely) you want to watch your boyfriend become utterly overjoyed and then suddenly, hilariously irate in the span of about 5 minutes as he watches football and monitors his fantasy team. Sometimes you want to lay in bed hungover all day and watch Netflix Instant Watch whilst drinking Gatorade through a straw. Sometimes you want to YouTube funny videos to have a good laugh in the privacy of your own home. Sometimes you want to download a song that you just heard before you forget it. Sometimes you run out of books to read, and the library is closed. Sometimes, when you’re all alone, having the TV on quietly in the background is almost sufficient company. It sure as hell beats chit-chatting with inch-worm you find in your veggies, or the shoe-racks you’re putting together (yes, I did both in the last 2 weeks).
So before you tell me to read books or bake cookies or have meaningful conversation, before you tell me how refreshing life is without the shackles of technology retarding human relationships and how I should be relishing this quiet, contemplative time, I got it. Thanks. I did all that. I read and I talked and I embraced the quiet (the quiet might have been the worst part). And then that stuff was all done, and there was TV/Internet related stuff that I wanted to do and could not. And that made me ragey.
Needles to say, it’s been a difficult two weeks. There is a light at the tunnel, however. I found a nice new cable company that will give me Tivo and fast internet and not require my firstborn as payment. H did some manly shopping and bought a new flat screen. On Saturday, installation day, a glorious dawn will rise. The dawn of technology.
Halle-freaking-lujah.
At least you live in civilization, and have a boyfriend… as for me, NO TV, and well, I finally sucked up the monthly internet bill, but still feel extremely isolated!